Dd 15 - psychotherapist or clinical psychologist

[Teenagehelpplease]

Regular user posting anon to protect my daughter.
DD is 15 and in Third Year. She has always struggled with friendships from junior infants. Can sometimes make friends superficially but cannot get to any depth with them and they fizzle out. She is miserable and feeling so left out. She cannot understand why she can’t make friends. From my perspective, we feel she possibly has very mild autism. She obsesses about certain topics of conversation, she’s a little lacking in empathy (but possibly no more than a lot of other teenagers), she has had phases of having different tics, she hates any team sports and does not engage with her peers when playing fun group games. But she is a very kind girl and very inclusive and wouldn’t hurt anyone. She does scouts and loves it as she has one pal there and also likes swimming as she likes the camaraderie of the chat in the changing room afterwards.

Anyway it is really getting her down and she has finally agreed to talk to someone. And I am trying to figure out who she needs to talk to. I don’t think we want to go down the road of a full assessment and diagnosis as that could upset her and set her back and I don’t really see the benefit of a diagnosis. But we would like someone who understands teenagers with autism and the fact that her mind works differently. I am looking for someone to listen to us first and then chat with her and offer her a listening ear and help her navigate social situations and give her some skills to help her interact better with her peers.

It’s hard to know where to start. I suspect we are looking for a clinical psychologist but maybe a psychotherapist would be ok (I must admit that I’m not 100% sure of the difference). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Elsie]

not sure what area you in but can recommend someone who people from all over travel to in Naas.

[TCR]

In the middle of this with my third year Dd. I got lots of helpful comments via PM. I have found someone from a recommendation. If you want to PM I’ll be happy to pass on the referral I got.


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[Guest]

Thanks both. I will pm you from my usual account.

[ainm2]

I would look to clinics that are set up for multi-disciplinary autism diagnoses. You might not want to go for the full assessment but they have follow up services including talk therapy that would probably be useful for your DD and you might decide later if you want to go for assessment. They'd be set up very well to understand young people with autism or similar difficulties. (I'm presuming that you are going private)

[Teenagehelpplease]

Thank you for your replies. I will PM you Elsie and TCR. Anim, yes that’s a good point and I tried one place that has a multidisciplinary team but they’re not taking any new referrals. She came home from school very fed up. I’ve been onto the school before but I might call them again tomorrow although not sure it will help much.